[This is the final piece in a multi-part series examining the city through the lens of the Green Metropolis, by David Owen]
A dynamically balanced ecosystem does not use less. On the surface, an ecology is blatantly wasteful; how many seeds dropped from a tree take root? How much seawater surrounds a single whale? Why do birds need to fly thousands of miles to a warm spot for the winter, when they could hibernate in one spot?
On the contrary, ecosystems use more, but in an extremely efficient way; each surplus or waste product is reprocessed into something else. The ‘wasted’ seeds are food for animals, seawater contains thousands of micro-organisms that convert CO2 or sunlight into energy which are then eaten by the whale, birds transport biomass and seeds as they migrate. Each consumptive act is matched by a productive outcome.
In an ecology, yes is more.
Ecological urbanism applies this methodology to the natural and anthropological networks that make up the city; how can the waste product from one process become productive for another? Somehow, rather than living smaller, closer and driving less, we need to figure out how to make consuming more ecologically reproductive. More is more. How can a toilet actually make more food?
Ecological thinking is scientifically holistic. It exploits data to apply creative solutions. It must quantify the energy and material flows of a city from cradle to cradle; yet also account for any social or political consequences from those flows. It needs to apply the counter-intuitive, broad-spectrum analysis and notions of convenience or cost suggested by the Green Metropolis.
For example: composting. Reprocessing our organic wastes is an easy way to re-create the soil from which the food came.
Shallow green urbanism might say: therefore let us collect compost from a city and make more soil, as we do with recycling or garbage pick-up. Yet if this done by massive, fossil fuel burning trucks, this may be actually counter-productive. If suddenly apartment dwellers have to grapple smelly buckets of slop through tight hallways, they might rebel. We might be better to devote fossil fuels to fertilizing existing soil.
The ecological urbanist method needs to be deeper.
Systems thinking prioritizes the connection between objects, rather than the objects themselves. By examining the connections between activities, flows emerge: What is wrong with the existing garbage collection system that disincentives composting? Why are current flows of material and energy ending up as a semi-toxic, mixed landfill, not healthy soil? Does it need to take place in the city, or can it be a process that is applied to the landfill itself?
Ecologies hybridize species for resilience. Cross-breeding ideas can also be fruitful: the destitute spend a whole lot of time and energy to collect cans and bottles as they have monetary value. How can food waste become valuable? Do groceries need a deposit? Do we need to put a price on garbage?
A degree of decentralization is also critical to an ecology. The base-inputs of low-quality energy are slowly converted into larger and larger organisms:
Do we need to provide individual apartments with vermi-composting? Does it need to be de-centralized? Is it enough to unlock the composting boxes at existing neighbourhood gardens and advertise? How can composting emerge as a day-to-day, convenient activity for our citizenry?
A creative, scientifically informed analysis of material flows creates a picture of a system’s energy inputs and outputs. Ecological urbanism uses this knowledge to make subtle shifts in an urban fabric that will allow a dynamically balanced, resilient urban ecology to express itself.
Less is not more; Yes is not more. More is more.
How can you make your personal flows of energy and materials fuel for another productive process? How could your community as a whole become more efficient, ecologically speaking?
[Hope you have enjoyed reading these posts; go do something!]